But you just before said:
If you go down the rabbit hole you’ll realise the only way around the problem of evils is a God who does not like intervening in the world as he values free will and the inherent order that arises from freely operating natural processes.
I think the Old Testament should be read in its literary and historical context.
Christ believed the OT to be true to every dot and iota, if you feel otherwise then you need to examine your own faith since you are making Christ out to be wrong.
Then, as another thread recently brought up - the punishment for fornication in the OT was stoning to death! Commanded by God none the less. And that’s just one example of a myriad of laws and rituals that Christians have thrown out (despite the dot and iota statement of Christ).
While I agree that God should be able to make people do things, my whole point was that he doesn’t do so in practice.If he really ‘ruled the hearts of kings’ and ‘used evil kings for his own purpose’ then we could say that Hitler was merely a puppet of God used to exact vengeance on the Jews or something.
I think rising from the dead is pretty much as authoritative an indication as you’ll ever get that Christ was no regular prophet.
I think you are an compatibilist so believe that God can determine human actions while also letting them exercise free will. I am an incompatibilist so differ with you on that.
There are moral laws which are never abrogated. There are social laws intended to separate the Jews from those around them, that wall of separation having been removed these no longer apply. However in his life Jesus obeyed even these laws perfectly. Concerning the sabbath Jesus clearly explains that the Sabbath is for the rest of men and for the praising of God of which doing works of mercy and grace and kindness certainly fall under categories.
Lots of people work on the Sabbath (whether it be housework or employment) under the Old Testament that is still a sin - however the Church today would certainly never say as much.
Not the Apostles, the Gospel writers, its not lying - it is looking through the Old Testament for relevant statements from the Prophets and then applying the ones that fitted to Jesus and so showing how he fulfilled the OT prophecies.
, since the Church canonized the Gospels and declared them to be Apostolic in origin.Working is not a work of benevolence and mercy.
The Gospel writers (of whom at least one was an Apostle ie John) wrote what they had been taught by the Apostles. Luke was a disciple of Paul and Mark of Peter, and Matthew (which I think he was the author) was a disciple. So to say that the Gospel writers embellished is to at least impune the dignity of two of the Apostles but also the Church since, as another thread on here so clearly explains
Don’t put words in my mouth - saying that the Gospels are not entirely historical does not mean they are worthless, we also have to keep in mind that the concept of strictly historical accounts in our modern sense did not exist back then so the Gospel writers were writing history as they understood it, not as we do today.
Razr, I’ve got to agree with bogey in this.
I never said the Gospels are not historically accurate! I said we shouldn’t read them like a court document or police report detailing the events of a case where everything is absolutely literally true.
The problem with this is that death and suffering existed aeons before Adam came about. However this sort of depends upon what you believe regarding evolution and monogenism/polygenism and the exact nature of original sin etc.
Well if angels can interact with the material world, there’s no reason why Satan and his demons cannot. So I think the ‘natural evil is caused by demons’ is a plausible explanation (certainly the Book of Job clearly shows this) - even though I don’t personally like it and prefer the free process explanation.
Well, I think there is a good solution to this issue - since God is outside of the universe, He can see time playing out within the universe, like watching a DVD - so He knows what will happen in the future because He’s already seen it and can simply intervene at any point in the universe’s timeline to relay prophecies etc.
I am aware of this problem, which is what I recently resolved for myself elsewhere. The best answer is that “death and suffering” did not truly exist in the natural order of things, because it was not capable of corrupting unfallen humans, and thus was not something to be overcome with death and resurrection. The universe may have still been there with the deaths of other creatures without souls, and the universe may have still faded out of existence, but Adam and Eve were originally intended to be assumed bodily into heaven rather than having to physically die. It is in this sense that “physical evil” (for lack of a better term) did not truly exist until after Original Sin. Satan may have had a role in tempting humans, but he could not himself do the deed that corrupted nature.
I agree that this is the 1st part of an answer, but it’s not at a full answer, and leaves untouched the whole heart of the problem. There’s a huge explanatory gap there.
That is exactly why I asked “Am I misreading what you are saying”. For I was hoping that this is where you were going with that statement. The synoptics are not a chronological historical document (although John’s could be said that it is), but each incident could be considered historically accurate.
You mean that Satan causes tornadoes? I had always assumed they were caused by thunderstorms.
…the confusion lies in our accessment; since God’s Way is not ours and He stands alone way above our means, it is only logical that our measurements cannot come even short of His:
This is only a small sampling of what St. Thomas offers and a full reading should give the average person the sure knowledge that we not only cannot fully define God’s actions in His Creation but we cannot understand it as well. It is that we being limited and a contingent reality, cannot define the prime reality of God and His movements as the effects cannot define a cause but can only offer possible explanations. Truth is more contemplative than explainable. All this rightly makes humility a virtue and understanding a gift of the Holy Spirit.
I don’t believe that, as you know - Alvin Plantinga presented it as a plausible explanation to the problem of natural evil.